A Man Rides Through (106 page)

"Glass and splinters, Terisa!" he breathed, pressing his face against her hair, "I'm sorry, I don't know what went wrong, thank the stars Havelock was watching his mirrors, I didn't mean to take us
there
—"

Already the Image of her apartment in the mirror he and the Adept had used was fading.

She kissed him to make him stop. "Don't apologize. You rescued us—that's what counts." That, and Reverend Thatcher's ability to extract money from her father. And the fact that she was no longer afraid. Part of her still felt like singing. "It was worth it.

"We've got to hurry. King Joyse doesn't have much time."

He met her gaze. For a moment, she could see the characteristic struggle between chagrin and eagerness going on inside him; self-distrust and hope at each other's throats. Almost at once, however, he smiled, and his eyes cleared, as if the acceptance he met in her turned the tide of the conflict.

"Right," he said like a man who couldn't think of any reason to be alarmed by the prospect of entering Master Eremis' stronghold. "Let's get started."

Together, they turned toward Havelock.

The Adept wasn't alone. He had Artagel with him.

Artagel was dressed for battle, and he was grinning.

Havelock had apparently been cleaning the room again. In one hand, he brandished a rather limp featherduster; he wore an apron several sizes too large for him to protect his still-spotless surcoat. Twisting his features as if he wanted to howl, he poked his duster at Terisa and Geraden, and said, "I
told
you to trust me.

"Don't you realize yet that I'm the one who planned all this? I planned it
all.
Joyse is the only man alive who could have
done
it, but I
planned
it. No matter how crazy I get, I'm the best fornicating hop-board player in Orison,
bar none.

"Remember
that, for a change."

Terisa couldn't resist: she asked, "You mean you knew we were coming?"

For once, the Adept was tolerant of questions. "Of course not. But I considered the possibility. What do you think planning
is?''

"It's good to see the two of you again," Artagel interrupted happily. "I gather things have finally gotten desperate enough for some dramatic Imagery. A few of the Cadwals we've been taking prisoner in the ballroom look actively horrified.

"What're you trying to do?"

"Go to Eremis' stronghold, if we can get there," answered Geraden. "He isn't in Esmerel. Nyle isn't there. That was a trap. But Terisa thinks she can make an Image of the place Eremis took her. If she can, maybe we can find it and get in."

"Good." Facing his brother boldly, Artagel said, "This time, you aren't going to get rid of me so easily. Whatever you have in mind, you're going to need a bodyguard. And I am sick to the teeth"—he flashed his grin—"of being in command of this useless pile of rocks."

Geraden started to protest, but Terisa stopped him. This was another of her reasons for returning to Orison. Two days ago—was it only two days ago?—he had said,
When the fighting really starts, we'd better be sure we've got somebody with us who handles a sword better than
/
do.
One of his "strongest feelings." Instead of trying to explain, however, she said, "Let him do what he wants. We don't have time to argue with him."

As if to demonstrate her point, she left Geraden's side and went to the mirror she wanted, the flat glass reflecting a sanddune in Cadwal.

"Besides," Artagel whispered to Geraden behind her, "Havelock says you need me. He got me down here. I didn't have any idea you were coming back."

"What makes you think you're ready for Gart?" demanded Geraden hotly. "He's already beaten you twice. And you're still hurt."

Artagel chuckled. "What makes you think the two of you are ready for Eremis and Gilbur and Vagel? We've all got to do what we can. And," he added more soberly, "you may not have time for Nyle. Maybe I'll be able to help him."

Geraden apparently found that argument difficult to refute. As if to relieve a personal anxiety, he changed the subject. "How's the siege?"

"No trouble," Artagel replied. "Margonal is a model enemy. Yesterday he sent me a dozen sides of beef. Sovereign's courtesy. I sent him a cask of the King's best wine. We're becoming friends. As long as Orison doesn't panic, I'm not needed here."

Terisa set herself in front of the glass she had chosen and tried to relax.

Now that she had assumed this responsibility, it promised to be more difficult than she had allowed herself to imagine. She needed to conceive an Image of a place she had never seen, a place she knew only in small pieces, by feel. And during the relatively short time she was there, she hadn't exactly been concentrating on exact, concrete details. It had been dark—dark— Master Eremis had chained her to the wall; he had talked to her, threatened her, touched her. The arch-Imager Vagel had visited her. She had found and spoken to Nyle. And all the time her attention, her talent, had been directed elsewhere, groping for an answer to her fear—reaching out to the room in which she stood now, rather than teaching itself to recognize her prison.

She could make the mirror's desert Image melt into darkness: that was easy. But there were many different kinds of darkness in the world, in many different places. How could she be sure that the Image she conceived wasn't buried away inside the heart of some mountain, or lost in the depths of the sea?

Light: she remembered a faint, ambient illumination, a glow from an imperfectly sealed window above the bed. That was a start. How large was the bed? What was it made of? She had no idea. But the chain— Roughly ten feet of it, long enough to permit the exercises Eremis intended; stapled to the wall at the head of the bed. What else did she know?

Vaguely, the location of the doorway.

The distance between her fetter and Nyle's.

And she could remember exactly what those two iron staples felt like. Nyle's short chain. His wrist in its manacle. The rough, warm fabric of his sleeve—

Wait a minute. Wait a minute.

Images focused on places, not on people. But Nyle had been chained to the wall; she assumed he was still chained to the wall. Didn't that make him part of the place, an essential component of the Image she needed?

If she could remember what he looked like—

That, too, was easy: he looked like Geraden; slightly shorter; Geraden aged or embittered by disappointment and pessimism.
Geraden reduced to despair by Eremis and Gilbur,
no, don't think about that now, don't be distracted, take a deep breath, concentrate. She even remembered what Nyle was wearing.

A brown worsted cloak which covered him from neck to ankles, to keep the blood and the knife Eremis had given him hidden.

If she put together an Image of Nyle chained in that position, in those clothes, that close to the bed and her chain and the window, about that far from the door— Would it be enough?

She wanted to ask Geraden, but she knew he didn't know the answer. No one had ever measured her talent; no one knew what she could do. And there was only one way to learn. She had to test herself and see what happened.

She had to do the same thing to herself that King Joyse had done to her.

She wondered where he got his courage.

But she had no time for doubt. Geraden and the Adept and Artagel were watching her silently; they may all have stopped breathing. And back in the Care of Tor, in the valley of Esmerel, more lives and hopes were lost with every moment she delayed.

One deliberate piece at a time, she began to construct the Image.

Fortunately, before she made a mistake, she felt a sting of recollection.

Clothes—clothes— There was something wrong with Nyle's clothes.

Of course. Nyle wasn't wearing the clothes she remembered. After the physician Underwell had been butchered, disfigured, he had been dressed in Nyle's clothes. Otherwise no one would have jumped to the conclusion that the dead man was actually Geraden's brother.

Her pulse beat in her throat so hard that she had trouble speaking.

"What did Underwell have on? When he went to treat Nyle?"

The three men behind her shifted their feet; she heard their boots distinctly on the stone floor. "My lady?" Artagel responded uncomfortably, as if he thought she might be losing her wits.

"Don't ask," she breathed. "Just tell me. I've got to concentrate."

"If I told Joyse once, I told him a dozen times," remarked the Adept, "don't trust women." He sounded especially happy. "They've got their hearts in their finery and their brains in their loins."

"You've seen it," Geraden put in at once. "It's kind of a uniform. All the physicians wear it. So they're easy to spot when they're needed. A gray doublet. Cotton breeches." His voice trailed off; he may not have had much confidence in his ability to describe clothing.

He had said enough, however. A gray doublet with long sleeves and rough-spun fabric; not the worsted cloak she remembered.

As if by an act of will, she added that detail to the Image in her mind.

All she needed, she kept reminding herself, all she needed was a close approximation. Her unexpected abilities would take care of the rest.

Gradually, the mirror's reflection dissolved from hot sunlight to an almost impenetrable blackness.

How
dare
you embarrass me like this?

I'm ashamed of you.

I'm going to punish you
—

Ha! she snorted reflexively. Try it.

She had a cramp between her shoulder blades. Every muscle in her body was knotted around itself. There were too many different kinds of dark in the world, too many different kinds of pain.

Studying the lightless Image, she said, "I need a lamp."

"What for?" inquired Artagel.

She wanted to repeat, Don't ask. I've got to concentrate. This time, however, it was important to be understood. Geraden had to be ready.

"I can use flat glass. You can't. I'm going to translate myself—there." Into a blackness she couldn't read, even though she peered at it until her temples throbbed. "With a lamp. If I don't lose control over this mirror, you'll be able to see where I am. Geraden can make another Image. A normal Image."

As she spoke, Geraden brought her a lamp. She risked a glance at him, risked losing her concentration— He was intent and keen, tight with determination; she couldn't imagine him losing heart. Nevertheless a shadow of fear darkened his gaze.

"Are you sure?" he whispered.

She shook her head. "Being sure is a weakness. Let Eremis have it."

Let her father have it.

Surprised by the steadiness of her hands, she accepted the lamp. Its flame seemed to come between her and the glass, changing the adjustment of her vision so that now she couldn't see anything.

An almost impenetrable blackness—

Oh, well.

Before she had time to think of any more reasons why she might fail, she opened the Image and stepped into it—

—
into the disorienting, endless, momentary absence between existence and existence.

When she hit the floor, she nearly dropped the lamp.

The cramp in her back hampered her, kept her from moving her arms freely. As a result, she had to struggle for balance, and her jerky movements almost threw the lamp out of her hands.

She caught herself, caught the lamp, drew a gasping breath.

There was a door in front of her, a wooden door banded and barred like the entrance to a cell. Her lamp was the only light in the room; her small flame sent shadows dancing across the raftered ceiling, down the stone walls. Like every other part of the world, the room was chilly.